🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1989Dec19.061822.27585@athena.mit.edu> crowston@athena.mit.edu
(Kevin Crowston) writes:

>>[After object] code is loaded, there is actually a different
>>physical machine there, just as much as if one had gone out and
>>bought a different machine.

>But even so, the program still exists in both cases, right?

Good question.  What *is* a "program", anyway?  The ascii source
characters, taken as an aggregate?  The machine-language code, as a
sequence of octal or hex characters?  The magnetic patterns on the
disc?  The electronic patterns in RAM when the programis loaded?  Or
is it, as I suspect, the detailed *concept* the programmer had in
mind when he wrote the source code?  Perhaps the program (or, if you
will, the overall algorithm) is a *possibility* that can be
actualized (implemented) in a variety of ways.  This possibility
exists in the mind of a conscious being as the concept called "the
program".  Without the concept, you would not have a "program" but a
mere pattern of electronic whatevers.
-- 
Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
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